American Roots Culture

56 minutes The Louisianna bayous combine West Indian, native American and hillbilly ingredients into a unique cultural gumbo. Alan Lomax's Cajun Country investigates Cajun's roots in Western France, visits their cattle drives, horse races, and barro...om dances in rural Louisiana, and listens to the salty tales and raunchy songs of its black, white, and Indian music-makers.[more]

Some of America's greatest traditional blues masters get together at home to swap songs from the old days and stories of what those days were like, when blues flourished 'back down home' at country breakdowns, corn-shuckings and houseparties. These ...musicians and their friends create the lively spirit of houseparty blues, while conveying the values, the history, the good and bad times, and the sense of community that gave form to their music and dance (Blurb by Dick Spottswood) Featuring: John Cephas, Phil Wiggins, Archie Edwards, John Jackson, James Jackson, Cora Jackson, Flora Molton, Larry Wise, John Dee Holeman, and Quentin 'Fris' Holloway. (57 min.)
ECP Resource John Cephas sings The Ballad of John Henry[more]

26 minutes, Teacher Review: An intimate and humorous look at the life and career of the legendary blues pianist Alex Moore, a native of Dallas, was the first African American Texan to receive a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment... for the Arts. Moore taught himself to play the piano by watching others and practicing whenever he got a chance. Because he had no formal training, Moore developed a distinctive improvisatory piano style that included elements of blues, ragtime, barrelhouse, stride and boogie-woogie. He combined steady left hand bass figures with fluid right hand melodies. His lyrics were both traditional and original and were a response to his playing of the piano and to the moment at hand. The film shows his mastery of the piano at a tribute held in his honor at the famous Majestic Theater - his last public performance.[more]

30 minutes, Color
Louisiana filmmaker, Pat Mire, teams up with veteran filmmaker and cinematographer, Charles Bush, to capture the natural drama of handfishing in this award-winning documentary. Highly visual, the film examines the thrilling regiona...l phenomenon of Cajuns who wade in murky bayou waters to catch huge catfish and turtles by reaching into hollow logs and stumps with their bare hands. Friends and family accompany the handfisherman to the bayou banks for Cajun music, festive cooking, and storytelling, and to witness this increasingly rare tradition. Told from the inside with multiple voices, Mire and Bush explore the chain of events set off by man's attempt to "improve" his environment by dredging bayous in this remarkable study of the relationship between cultural and natural resources.[more]

23 minutes Bodhidharma is the legendary Buddhist monk who brought Zen (Ch'an) practice from India to China in the 5th Century.
Bodhidharma's Shoe is a personal account of a seven day intensive Zen retreat or "Sesshin" at Bodhi Manda Zen Center. The ...filmmaker intercuts video of the retreat with drawings of traditional Japanese Zen monastic life by Giei Sato that were published in the book "Unsui: A Diary of Zen Monastic Life" (University of Hawaii Press).
Bodhi Manda Zen Center is located in Jemez Springs, New Mexico.
The teacher is Joshu Sasaki Roshi who was born in Japan in 1907 and came
to the United States to teach in 1962. Bodhi Manda is one of the more
traditional Rinzai Zen centers in the United States. Other American Zen centers have adapted and changed (using English in the chanting, for example) but the core practices of Zen centers are similar.[more]

From folkstreams.net, produced by Jack Ofield, Bowling Green Films, Inc.

20 minutes, Color Original format: 16mm, 1976
Lawrence Older [1912-1982] is a relaxed, direct and engaging
performer who spent the majority of his life working in the woods. His
songs and fiddle tunes are mostly from his family tradition and ar...e
representative of the local melodies and the rich musical tradition of
America's northeastern states.
This stream was made from a newly restored print of Adirondack Minstrel made with a film preservation grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation.[more]

From folkstreams.net, produced by Davenport Films and the Curriculum in Folklore at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

55 minutes ohn E. "Frail" Joines was a master tale teller from Wilkes County, N. C., on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His hunting tales, stories from World War II, and religious narratives, and the life stories of Frail Joines and hi...s wife Blanche mirror changes that swept away much of the traditional culture of his Appalachian rural community in a single generation and show the character and values with which his family met these circumstances. "They wanted to know how I got so many scars, when I come out of the Army, and I told them that being a Joines got me the scars. I told them going through the war was just like going to a Sunday-school picnic." -Frail Joines[more]

13 Minutes Mountain Women playing Dulcimer describes the life. Performance of and commentary on Anglo-American ballads and songs by 86 and 92 year old mountain women, Buna Hicks of Beech Creek and Bertha Baird of Rominger in western North Carolina.

14 minutes Rare 8mm footage of black churches in the Mississippi Delta in 1968.
Includes footage from rural church services and a full immersion
baptism. The audio is only roughly in sync with the picture, but this
makes the film even more powe...rful and authentic. Produced by Center for Southern Folklore by William Ferris and edited in 16mm by Judy Peiser.[more]

1 hours, 10 minutes, Color From the big wheel to the midway, the house of mirrors to the dime toss, every ride on the James E. Strates Show's carnival travels from town to town by train, from Florida to upstate New York.
The carnies who assemble and... maintain the rides and man the games are
often looked down upon because of their transient way of life. Matt Barr – who worked five summers as a carney in California in the 1970s – goes behind the scenes to capture how the magic of the midway comes together, town after town, and how carnies create a community and way of life that transcends place and time.[more]

Please make your comments on categories positive, and not just negative.

People work hard on educational categories, and we want to encourage them to make more!

Profanity (curse words), sexually suggestive remarks, and other such obviously inappropriate comments
will be deleted immediately, and are grounds for immediate expulsion. Remember, children use this website.

Personal criticism on project forums and in video content is not allowed and will be deleted immediately.
Any violations of this rule could result in expulsion from the project so please, no insults or other negative
personal remarks.

Very harshly-worded criticism of content will also be deleted promptly. Please use your vote to express your
harshest feelings. Repeated violations of this rule can result in expulsion. If you must criticize another
person's hard work, then be nice about it.